Blue Period | First Impressions: Great so far.

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Second-year high school student Yatora Yaguchi is a delinquent with excellent grades, but is unmotivated to find his true calling in life. Yatora spends his days working hard to maintain his academic standing while hanging out with his equally unambitious friends. However, beneath his carefree demeanor, Yatora does not enjoy either activity and wishes he could find something more fulfilling.

While mulling over his predicament, Yatora finds himself staring at a vibrant landscape of Shibuya. Unable to express how he feels about the unusually breathtaking sight, he picks up a paintbrush, hoping his thoughts will be conveyed on canvas. After receiving praise for his work, the joy he feels sends him on a journey to enter the extremely competitive Tokyo University of the Arts—a school that only accepts one in every 200 applicants.

Facing talented peers, a lack of understanding of the fine arts, and struggles to obtain his parents’ approval, Yatora is confronted by much adversity. In the hopes of securing one of the five prestigious spots in his program of choice, Yatora must show that his inexperience does not define him.

Blue Period has been an exciting anime. Something about it has drawn me towards it, and it’s tough to explain what exactly it was. Blue Period surrounds itself in the world of art, and maybe that’s why it fascinates me so much because it isn’t something you typically see. An anime where everything about it is about the art world and everything that goes along with it.

I will admit, I probably haven’t paid close enough attention to what is actually being discussed throughout each episode. I mean, since Blue Period is about art, a lot of the discussion is about different techniques, styles etc., all of which I’m sure went over my head. However, to say that this series is only about art is wrong because it merely uses art as a form of expression.

What has really drawn me to this anime is the male protagonist, Yaguchi. What really stuck out about him was how raw Yaguchi was as a character. At the start of the anime, he was a character who hung out with people who were not very interested in school at all. Yaguchi was a character who was perfectly content with strolling through life while putting the least amount of effort in. That is until he came across a painting that changed everything for him. Throughout the four episodes, we see a fundamental shift in Yaguchi. No longer is Yaguchi freeloading, and no longer is he suppressing his own feelings. Now he’s obsessed with expressing himself through art because Yaguchi believes that’s the only way he can do it effectively. The only problem is, how can Yaguchi properly express his feelings in a world where the medium chosen is open-ended?

Character development is the name of the game with Blue Period. Yaguchi has come a long way in four episodes, and he’s really turning into someone who’ll become a student of art. However, while he now has a median where he can adequately express himself, he’s still very harsh on himself and is quick to put himself down whenever Yaguchi feels like he can never match up to those who are better than him. Seeing Yaguchi balance this episode to episode has been fascinating because Yaguchi wants to be the best, but you can still sense the fear and the lack of confidence in himself. It’s almost like he’s fighting with himself internally as he goes through this journey of self-discovery.

Apart from Yaguchi, however, I haven’t really encountered characters that I thought were as interesting as our male protagonist. Maybe that comes down to a character development standpoint. I believe that because Yaguchi is already so developed, and since a lot of the emphasis of the anime is on him, everyone else, all the other characters just feel uninteresting. Yes, there is Ryuuji and Takahashi, but they don’t seem to be developing as quickly or appear to be all that involved in the anime itself. So right now they’re currently afterthoughts. Going forward, I’d definitely like to see this new group of friends that Yaguchi has found himself be more involved. Generally, anything that adds to the overall entertainment factor of the anime would be nice.

Anyway, so far, so good. From what I’ve seen, Blue Period seems to have the tools to make possibly make it a great anime. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next.